The Ancient Chinese Spirit Mountains Of Bohai

In the days of the Qin and early Han Dynasty, ancient China was in the midst of an immortal-hunting fervor that infected all levels of society, including the emperors. The mysterious community of supernatural Chinese entities, known collectively as “the immortals,” had similar lives to the Greek gods—both groups were said to have rarely appeared before human eyes and both divine communities spent most of their time in isolation on holy mountains. Yet, the mountain retreats of the Chinese immortals were a bit more complex than the dwelling of the Greek gods on Olympus. According to ancient Chinese mythology, the immortals lived on huge and mobile supernatural landmasses known as spirit mountains, which, like a mirage, could be seen but not reached in the Gulf of Bohai.

Belief in the immortals and spirit mountains long predated the Qin Dynasty. In fact, the 4th-century BCE Daoist scholar, Liezi, mentioned five such spirit mountains in the text that shares his name. Yet, it was King Zheng (the First Emperor of Qin) who mobilized the empire in search of the spirit islands. Sometime after King Zheng brought all of the Chinese kingdoms under his rule in 221 BCE and declared himself to be the August Emperor, a man named Xu Fu appeared before the emperor and claimed that he had a lead on finding three of the evasive spirit mountains. These three mountain-islands were called Fangzhang, Yingzhou and Penglai, of which the last was seemingly the most important. From these magical islands, an elixir (or herb) of immortality could reportedly be obtained, which was something that the First Emperor was eager to possess. Upon hearing of Xu Fu’s proposed expedition to search for the spirit mountains in the Gulf of Bohai, the First Emperor of Qin enthusiastically agreed to the plan and reportedly put Xu Fu in command of thousands of explorers.

Although Fu Xu and other explorers spent a fortune (of the emperor’s money) on their quest to find the spirit mountains, they never made any progress. In their reports back to the First Emperor, Xu Fu and his comrades came up with a number of odd excuses for their inability to find the magical mountain abodes, such as the appearances of magical barriers or hostile aquatic guardians. According to the historian, Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), one such message to the First Emperor read, “The herbs of Penglai can surely be obtained. But always there are large fish that cause difficulty, and therefore we are unable to reach the island” (Shi Ji, 6). In response, the emperor reportedly gave the explorers fishing gear and, for the biggest of fish, repeating crossbows. Interestingly, the First Emperor was said to have been touring the coastline of the Gulf of Bohai (and hunting for giant fish) when he fell ill and died in 210 BCE.

The aforementioned Sima Qian was the Grand Historian and Palace Secretary of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141-87 BCE). Emperor Wu was reportedly the most zealous seeker of the immortals since the days of the First Emperor of Qin.  When Emperor Wu was not focused on orchestrating new conquests and expanding the power of his central government, he would send out waves of explorers into the Gulf of Bohai to search for spirit mountains.

Present in Emperor Wu’s court were several magicians who claimed to have knowledge of the spirit mountains—and others even claimed to have been students of the immortals. The magicians whose teachings most affected Emperor Wu were Li Shaojun (an elderly wiseman who claimed to know how to reach Penglai) and Gongsun Qing, a long-serving courtier and magical advisor who eventually attempted to grow a so-called fungus of immortality in the emperor’s palace. Gongsun Qing did, indeed, grow some sort of strange fungus around 109 BCE, prompting the excited emperor to proclaim a general amnesty in celebration, yet it was a far cry from the herb of immortality on Penglai.

Sima Qian wrote about the magicians and Emperor Wu’s search for the magical islands in what is known as The Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifices (Shi Ji 28), included in his Records of the Grand Historian. In that treatise, Sima Qian wrote down a summary of the various pieces of folklore he had heard about the spirit mountains:

“[Penglai, Fangzhang and Yingzhou] were three spirit mountains which were supposed to exist in the Gulf of Bohai. They were not very far from the land of men, it was said, but the difficulty was that, whenever a boat was about to touch their shores, a wind would always spring up and drive it away. In the past, people said, there had been men who succeeded in reaching them, and found them peopled by fairy spirits who possessed the elixirs of immortality. All the plants and birds and animals of the island were white, and the palaces and gates were made of gold and silver. Seen from afar, the three spirit mountains looked like clouds but, as soon as one drew closer, they seemed instead to be down under the water” (Shi Ji 28, Burton Watson translation pg. 14).

As happened with the First Emperor of Qin, the explorers and magicians working with Emperor Wu made little progress in their search for the immortals and the spirit mountains of Bohai. Although Emperor Wu did execute numerous magicians who were found out to be frauds, and, by 98 BCE, began to feel disheartened about his search for the magic islands, the emperor reportedly never lost faith in their existence.  Yet, despite Emperor’s Wu’s decades of sending explorers into the Gulf of Bohai, and his cultivation of a home-grown fungus of immortality, the emperor never found a way to ward off old age. He died in 87 BCE.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Painting depicting the Spirit Island of Penglai by Yuan Yao (active in the 18th century), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
• http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Myth/personspenglai.html
• http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Daoists/liezi.html
• http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Novels/haineishizhouji.html
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shihuangdi

How An Old Man Allegedly Helped Create The Han Dynasty By Dropping A Shoe

Zhang Liang was from a prominent family that served one of the feudal kingdoms that was eventually toppled by the Qin Dynasty (c. 221-206 BCE). Even after the Zhang family found itself under Qin rule, they still had wealth—Zhang Liang reportedly had the means to fund a staff of 300 servants. Yet, Zhang Liang was too patriotic to appreciate being able to keep his wealth under the new regime. Instead, he decided to spend his remaining family fortune on bankrolling a band of rebels to resist the Qin rulers.

According to the ancient historian, Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), Zhang Liang and his band of dissidents tried to assassinate the First Emperor of Qin, Shihuangdi, in 218 BCE. They hunted down the emperor’s carriage train while he was touring the east. The rebels set up an ambush and Zhang Liang gave his strongest recruit an enormous iron bludgeon with which to lead the attack. As the rebels had planned, the emperor’s entourage rolled into the trap. When the time was right, the assassins charged toward the wagons and successfully smashed their way into one of the regal carriages. Luck, however, was not on the side of the rebels that day. They made the unsalvageable mistake of attacking the wrong carriage. Instead of discovering the vulnerable emperor inside, the rebels found only startled attendants. The mistake gave the guards enough time to rally to the defense of their emperor. With their plan foiled, the rebels scattered and went into hiding. Zhang Liang assumed an alias and settled down in Xiapei. While there, he spent much of his time pacing around the local embankments.

According to Sima Qian, Zhang Liang was strolling along one of these embankments when he spotted a quirky old man in crude clothing walking toward him. As the two came into speaking distance, Zhang Liang watched in amazement as the elder took off his shoe and deliberately sent it tumbling down the embankment, where it came to a rest beside the water’s edge. Once the shoe came to a halt, the old man asked the baffled Zhang Liang to fetch the shoe. For a moment, the rebel did not know if he wanted to help the man or punch him. After a moment of deliberation, Zhang Liang climbed down the embankment and retrieved the shoe. When Zhang Liang climbed back up with the footgear, the old man then asked the rebel for a further favor—he wanted help putting the shoe back on his foot. After Zhang Liang helped with the shoe, the old man only laughed and walked off without a word.

The befuddled Zhang Liang watched as the chuckling elder continued on his walk. Yet, eventually the old man began shuffling his way back to the slack-jawed rebel. When he had returned, the old man approvingly said that Zhang Liang had potential and asked for the rebel to meet him at that spot on the embankment at dawn in five days time.

Zhang Liang counted off the days and when the fifth had come, he woke up at dawn and set off for the embankment. When he arrived, he found that the old man was already present and visibly angry. The elder chided his student for being late and told him to come again in five days.

On the appointed day, Zhang Liang woke with the birds and arrived at the embankment just before dawn. Again, the old man was already there and, again, the elder was angry. Disappointed, the old man dismissed Zhang Liang and told him to arrive on time in five days.

When the scheduled meeting was near, Zhang Liang decided that he would take no chances. Therefore, the rebel took only a brief nap for his rest and traveled out to the embankment in the middle of the night. To Zhang Liang’s satisfaction, the old man was nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, the rebel did not have to wait long before he could make out the old man approaching in the darkness. When the two met, the elder mused out loud that this was indeed the Way. After announcing his approval, the old man held out a book to Zhang Liang and prophesied that with its written wisdom, the rebel would become a successful teacher of kings. After that, the old man wandered off into the darkness and Zhang Liang never saw him again.

Sima Qian wrote that the book given to Zhang Liang was called The Grand Duke’s Art of War. As for the old man, Sima Qian did not presume to know the identity of the sage, but he did not rule out the possibility of a supernatural being. Other commentators on the story linked the old man to the semi-mythical Daoist figure, Huang Shigong.

According to Sima Qian, The Grand Duke’s Art of War was priceless for Zhang Liang during the civil wars that brought about the fall of the Qin Dynasty and the rise of the Han Dynasty. When widespread rebellions sprung up against the Qin Dynastic rule in 209 BCE, Zhang Liang joined the rebels and aligned himself with Liu Bang, the king of Han, and King Cheng, who ruled Zhang Liang’s ancestral homeland. When a rival warlord murdered King Cheng, Zhang Liang put his full support behind Liu Bang, who would found the Han Dynasty of China and bring the fractured Chinese kingdoms under his control by 202 BCE.

Zhang Liang was said to have instructed Liu Bang in the wisdom of The Grand Duke’s Art of War and also tutored Liu Bang’s successor, Emperor Hui. Although Zhang Liang became too sick to fight during Liu Bang’s rise to power, he played a vital role in the background as a master strategist for the Han forces. For his contributions, Zhang Liang was given the title of marquis.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Painting of Zhang Liang and Huang Shigong, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
• http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/08.+Applied+Arts/415029/?lng= 
• http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Han/personszhangliang.html